


Fingers Crossed

by henriettahoney



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Coughing, Domestic, Farmer Ronan Lynch, Fever, Gen, Get off my ass, Hand Jobs, I’m not okay, M/M, Married Couple, Ronan Lynch Has Feelings, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is baby, Self-Indulgent, Sickfic, Smut, Sneezing, The Barns (Raven Cycle), lots of tea drinking, sick/comfort, there was literally no reason for me to write this, yes I know it doesn’t belong here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 09:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20151640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henriettahoney/pseuds/henriettahoney
Summary: Ronan pulls up a second documentary on Netflix.Adam sleeps.Ronan watches the full second documentary (on the parallels between organic and industrialized farming).Adam sleeps.Ronan locks his phone and stares, unblinking, at the ceiling.Adam sleeps.As soon as Ronan begins to drift off, Adam is coughing again.It’s going to be a long fucking night.





	Fingers Crossed

From the study next door, Ronan has heard, “Excuse me,” between fits of coughing and Adam clearing his throat approximately ten times in the past half hour. 

He’s attempting to tutor a group of pre-law students over a conference call, and his voice is so spotty Ronan isn’t sure how any of them can understand half the legal jargon he’s spouting off. Not that he can understand the majority of it when Adam’s speaking clearly, to be fair. 

“Exactly,” Adam is saying now, “which is why there’s such an acute difference between retrial in capitol offense cases and—hold on, guys. Sorry.”

Cue coughing fit number eleven. 

Ronan sighs, extracting himself from the bed, and pads down the hall, knocking lightly on the pushed-to door to alert Adam of his presence before entering. 

_ Enough _, he mouths, just as one of the girls on the other line asks, “Do you need to go, Mr. Lynch? We could put together a group of questions in the Drive and you could just answer them that way. You sound—”

“Like shit,” someone else—a guy this time—interjects. “Full offense.”

Ronan smirks pointedly. 

Adam shoots him the finger, and then, to the students, says, “If you wouldn’t mind, yeah, that might be our best bet. I’m losing my voice. Um, I’ll check the Drive in an hour or so and—”

“You’ll be sleeping in an hour or I’ll knock your ass out myself,” Ronan says, not bothering to whisper now. 

This elicits a collective, “_ Oooh _,” from the group on the other line, followed by a singular, “Is that the elusive husband?”

“It is,” Adam confirms, glaring at Ronan with all the fury of a wet kitten. One with a particularly red nose and bleary, watering eyes. “But seriously, if you need—”

“If you need him for the next twelve hours, he’ll be unavailable,” Ronan informs them, lunging forward and swiping the phone from Adam’s desk. 

“Ro,” Adam complains, to which a couple of the call’s female participants respond with respective, incomprehensible swooning. 

“Fine. Eight hours,” Ronan bargains. “If he’s still alive in the morning, he can enlighten you all with his wisdom then.”

“Totally fair,” comes a male voice, followed by the distant sound of shuffling paper. “Night, Mr. Lynch! And, uh, Mr. Lynch. Feel better!”

“Thanks, Dex,” Adam says, and sneezes into his elbow. “Night, guys.”

Ronan ends the call. 

The entirety of Adam’s appearance screams _ exhausted. _The bags under his eyes are darker than Ronan’s seen them since undergrad, his hair is disheveled from sweat, and there are wadded tissues strewn haphazardly about his workspace. Ronan strokes a thumb over one of his flushed cheeks, and then drops it to the string of his worn Harvard hoodie, giving it a gentle tug. 

“Doesn’t look like the ‘sweat it out’ method is going too well for you, shithead. Take some fucking aspirin.”

“I will,” Adam tells him, taking his hand and pulling himself up from his seat. “Just hadn’t thought about it before now. Fever went down for a while earlier.”

“Yeah, well,” Ronan scoffs, pulling Adam heavily against his side. “It’s right the fuck back up now. How’re you feeling? Like death warmed over?”

“Give or take,” Adam confirms, offering him a small smile. “Headache’s not as bad as it has been, but my whole throat feels like it’s on fire now.”

“I’ll make you some tea,” Ronan says, because he’s not _ that _ much of an asshole, thanks. “How’s your stomach?”

“Fine,” Adam says, shrugging one shoulder. It’s the one pressed into Ronan’s upper ribs, but he doesn’t complain. “I mean, I’m swallowing, like. A _ lot _ of shit. So it could be better. But I can handle some tea.”

Ronan kisses the top of his head and lets him go, save for one hand against his lower back. “Go lay down or shower or whatever. I’ll be back up in ten.”

He heads downstairs. 

When he opens the tea cabinet to take stock of his options, he finds that his best available bets for a sore throat are chamomile, which Adam hates, and ginger. He debates heavily on making the chamomile just to be a dick, and then pulls out the ginger instead, filling the teapot with water and setting it on the stove to boil. 

As promised, ten minutes later, he’s back upstairs with a dangerously full mug of tea in one hand and a bottle of fever-reducers in the other. 

He checks the bedroom, which is vacant, and then the bathroom, bumping the door open with his hip. 

Adam’s standing in front of the sink with wet hair and a towel around his waist, spitting phlegm into the basin. “Way to knock,” he says when he rights himself. “I could’ve been—”

“So?” Ronan asks, in response to his vague, illustrative gesture. 

Adam sighs, defeated, as if to say, _ fair. _“What kind is that?”

“Ginger,” Ronan tells him, handing him the mug and twisting the cap off the medicine bottle. “Here, take these with water. Tea still needs to cool down some.”

Adam places the mug on the edge of the sink and opens his mouth for Ronan to deposit the pills into, cupping his hands under the tap and bringing the water to his lips to swallow them down. 

“Bed,” Ronan tells him. “Now.”

Adam doesn’t argue, which is more solid proof than anything else of how drained he is. Just picks up the tea and flips off the light, letting Ronan take his free hand and drag him into their room. 

“You gonna be able to sleep, or are you too tired?”

“Don’t know,” Adam says, settling the tea on the nightstand before climbing under the comforter and immediately erupting into a litany of coughs. 

“Take it easy,” Ronan says, slotting himself between Adam and the bed. “You gonna make it?”

“Maybe,” Adam chokes out, after a solid fifteen seconds. “God.”

“Ronan’ll do just fine.”

Adam smacks his chest. 

“You wanna watch something? Or turn something on for background noise, at least, in case you can’t fall asleep?”

“Yeah,” Adam agrees mildly. “Whatever you want is fine.”

The heat from his face is radiating through Ronan’s shirt, and Ronan has half a mind to retrieve the thermometer from the medicine cabinet. But Adam has just gotten comfortable, and the last thing Ronan wants is to disturb the peace, so he opens the Netflix app on his phone instead, scrolling through the documentaries until he comes to one on native southern U.S. wildlife. 

Adam’s out by the end of the beginning credits. 

Ronan wakes him periodically to force him to take sips of tea, but lets him doze so long in between each one that he knows it has to be lukewarm at best by the time he’s drained the cup. 

He sleeps through the remainder of the documentary in its entirety and only wakes again at the end for another violent fit of coughing, which Ronan holds him through, stroking his back and hair and any other feasible inch of his body. There’s no place for his caustic commentary here, no place for him to tease Adam about clinging to him like a lifeboat. Adam’s guard is down far enough, still practically asleep, that he’s making no strides to hide how miserable he is, hands fisted in Ronan’s tee and involuntary tears slipping from the corners of his eyes as the coughs wrack his frame. 

“Is it hurting your chest, babe?” he asks once Adam’s breathing again, softer than he ever speaks during the light of day. 

Adam nods, because Ronan will simply continue pressing until he tells the truth. 

“You don’t think it’s, like—I don’t know, like something _ bad _, right?”

“Like pneumonia or something?” Adam supplies. “Nah, I don’t think so. Pretty sure it’s just a nasty cold.”

“You feel a little bit cooler,” Ronan says. He knows it’s just the medicine, but the fact that Adam’s reacting to fever aids is something of a relief. 

Ronan wouldn’t consider himself a hypochondriac—it’s just that, one, anything concerning Adam is bound to provoke some heightened degree of worry, and two, Adam’s shitty immune system is prone to setting him up as the poster child for the adage that before things get better, they’ll get worse. 

“I’m not freezing anymore,” Adam tells him. “Probably a good sign, right?”

“Probably,” Ronan echoes. “Go back to sleep.”

Adam does. 

Ronan pulls up a second documentary on Netflix. 

Adam sleeps. 

Ronan watches the full second documentary (on the parallels between organic and industrialized farming). 

Adam sleeps. 

Ronan locks his phone and stares, unblinking, at the ceiling. 

Adam sleeps. 

As soon as Ronan begins to drift off, Adam is coughing again. 

It’s going to be a long fucking night. 

* * *

In the morning, they’re both worse for wear. Adam wakes at six o’clock, and his fever is gone, but his throat is hurting so badly he can’t speak. 

Ronan’s hardly functional, having slept for a total of zero point fucking zero hours between worrying and soothing Adam back to sleep, but he shuffles out of bed, anyway, to make Adam another cup of tea and feed him some more pain meds. 

“I know it sucks,” he says, when Adam eyes the tea warily—chamomile this time, because Adam actually admitted that he was afraid the ginger would burn too much. “But it’s gonna help. Do you want to go back to work tomorrow, or are you gonna be stubborn enough to keep getting worse?”

Adam takes the tea from Ronan’s hand and downs it in one go, which is a terrible idea for a plethora of reasons, beginning with the fact that he can’t breathe through his nose and ending somewhere along the line of the excruciating pain it causes him to swallow. 

“Dammit, Parrish,” Ronan complains, only catching himself when the realization sets in that Adam is too busy expelling his lungs from his body to correct him, his usual _ That’s not my name anymore _ going unsaid but still understood. “Digging you a grave wasn’t on my to-do list for today, and I honestly don’t have time to fit it in.”

“Sorry,” Adam rasps after a moment, collapsing against Ronan. “I’ll remember to be more considerate next time I’m dying.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Ronan tells him. “Can you try to eat something?”

Adam sifts his fingers through his hair and nods. He isn’t wild about the idea, Ronan can tell, but he’s not going to say no when it’s so obvious that the lockdown Ronan’s keeping on his concern is about to fall to pieces. 

“I don’t care what it is,” Ronan says. “Whatever you want, I’ll make it or go get it or whatever. Just tell me.”

Adam considers for a long while. Then, quietly, “I know it’s ass o’clock, but mashed potatoes?”

Ronan makes him mashed potatoes. 

By the time they’re done, the sun is up in earnest, and Ronan fries himself some eggs and bacon while Adam eats. 

“I need to go feed the animals,” he says, when they’re both done. “You wanna come outside? Might do you some good not to be cooped up in this germ-infested house for a few minutes.”

Adam follows him out onto the porch and plops down with his feet on the steps, leaning against the post to his right. 

Ronan _ really _wants to kiss him. 

He’s still ruffled from sleep, one leg of his sweats rucked halfway up his calf, shirt twisted so that his left hip is peeking out from beneath it, lips swollen because he can’t stop licking them when he has no choice but to breathe out of his mouth. 

“Don’t,” he says, watching Ronan watch him. “It’s a miracle you haven’t caught it already. I want to, too. _ So _bad. But we’re not taking any chances.”

_ I want to, too. _ So _ bad _. 

Ronan swallows. “Adam.”

It must be because Adam knows that tone. It must be because he’s used to watching Ronan flip like a switch and accommodating accordingly. It must be because he’s seen this side of Ronan a thousand times and has never found a way to shut it down without letting it run its course. “What do you need, honey?” he asks, sweet as syrup, voice still wrecked and low. “I can’t kiss you, but I can—come here.”

Ronan complies.

He’s not hard—not yet—but Adam wastes no time getting him there, pulling down just the front of his flannel pajama pants and wrapping a hand around his cock. 

Ronan makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been working so much,” Adam says, quiet, leaning his head against Ronan’s chest. “You know you can always tell me if—”

“Shut up,” Ronan manages. 

Adam laughs, and audibly forces himself not to choke on it. But he _ does _ shut up. 

It doesn’t take him long, stroking Ronan _ just _ fast enough, to get him from half-mast to cutting fucking diamonds, and he already knows he isn’t going to last long. 

“Hope you weren’t looking for a show,” he warns, left hand rubbing at the back of Adams neck, partly to gauge his temperature, partly to keep his head right where it is. He likes the weight of it there. Likes the illusion that Adam is close enough. 

“S’okay,” Adam tells him. “If you need to come, go ahead. Plenty of time to draw it out later.”

_ Not yet _ , Ronan pleads with himself. _ Not fucking yet _. 

Adam’s free hand is working its way under his shirt, splaying over his stomach, and Ronan knows it’s probably just to for stability, to hold himself still, but the skin-on-skin is almost too good. 

He wants to say so, but he’s afraid if he opens his mouth nothing coherent will come out, so he curls his fingers into Adams hair instead. 

“_ Shit _,” Adam breathes, alerting Ronan to the fact that he must be pulling. He can’t feel himself doing it, but he can’t feel much of anything at this point. There’s a dull roar behind his eardrums and his chest and his cock, like his entire body is trying to burst. 

“Adam,” he intones, as much a question as a prayer. 

“Yeah,” Adam responds, as much a command as an answer. 

Adam’s had a hand on him for all of two minutes and Ronan is coming. 

He keeps his shit together well enough that his knees don’t buckle, but he still has to catch himself on Adam’s thigh to remain upright. 

“Well, that didn’t help anything,” Adam sighs, a little sad, mostly amused. “I just wanna kiss you even worse now.”

“Then kiss me,” Ronan challenges. 

Adam shoves playfully at his arm. “Go take care of your farm, cowboy.”

Ronan mimes tipping a hat, because he’s a bastard, and goes. 

He feeds the animals. He waters the crops. He cleans the stalls. 

When he returns, thirty minutes later at the least, Adam is right where he left him, beautiful and smiling and bone-tired. 

“We’re going back to bed,” Ronan informs him. 

He expects an excuse somehow related Adam’s pre-law students and their impending exam. 

Adam does not protest. 

This time, when Adam falls asleep, Ronan does, too. 

* * *

When he wakes, it’s nearing noon, and Adam is snoring surprisingly lightly for someone whose sinuses are basically out of commission. 

He tries to extract his arm from beneath Adam’s head without waking him, but as soon as he so much as twitches, Adam blinks groggily over at him, eyes hazy and unfocused. 

“Mornin’, sunshine,” he greets. “Feelin’ okay? Not any worse, at least?”

Adam slots against his side, hooking a leg over his as if to hold him in place. “Little better, actually. Doesn’t feel _ quite _as much like I’ve been gargling thumbtacks.”

“Good to hear,” Ronan chuckles. “Fever’s still gone. Think you’re getting over it?”

“Fingers crossed.”

“Yeah,” Ronan agrees, kissing his temple. “Fingers crossed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Literally no one asked for this. I have So Many Things to be working on and NO ONE asked for this and it literally has NO plot I’m just a sucker for sickfics and for brief pynch smut so here it is


End file.
